Longform at The Standard: Chip Kidd and Aleksandar Hemon during Miami Book Fair

A couple weeks back, the literary world descended on Miami’s shores for the 32nd Miami Book Fair International. MBFI attracts some of the biggest names in books for a week of readings, panels, and pow-wows, so we thought: what if we invited some of our friends—say, some friends with a certain expertise in talking up authors—to swing down to The Standard for a chat with the fair's bold-faced names.

Which is exactly what we did with our pals from Longform.

For those who aren’t familiar, Longform curates a incredible selection of mind-blowing stories from across the web—stellar reads that you won’t be able to put down. They also have an eye-opening, in-depth podcast in which they interview the writers of these stories about the nuts and bolts of what they do.

Longform co-founder Aaron Lammer checked into The Standard, Miami Beach, and when he wasn’t lazing around our hamam or enjoying our underwater sound system, he recorded two great interviews. In the first, he talks to the renowned book designer and author Chip Kidd. The second conversation features the literary star Aleksander Hemon, whose fiction and non-fiction appear regularly in the New Yorker.

If you didn’t make it down to Miami this year, this is probably the next best thing. Take a listen below.